Workshop

Windows
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Usually, the %WINSYSDIR% variable (you can show it by typing set at a command prompt) is
C:\WINDOWS, but it could be something else, such as C:\win95. Similarly, under NT,
%SYSTEMROOT% is typically WINNT, but it might be something else, such as WTSRV for Windows
Terminal Server 4.0. jobnum is a system-assigned number, and it could be anything—you’ll want to
troubleshoot on a fairly quiet system so that you don’t have to wade through thousands of spool files
trying to find yours.
NetWare
Each queue needs a place to store its files; NWAdmin will let you choose a place, such as
SPACEMONKEY_SYS. QueueVol is usually one of the SYS: volumes on one of your servers, but you
should check NWAdmin details of the queue for where it really lives.
Each queue in NetWare also has a unique 8-digit hexadecimal value that’s also listed in the properties
in NWAdmin. Just fill in the hex number in place of QUEUENUM. For example, my queue might live
in SPACEMONKEY_SYS:\system\f00d160d.qdr.
UNIX
Most SVR4 UNIX flavors keep their spool files here, but some keep them somewhere else. You’ll
want to check your vendor-supplied documentation.
Once you find the file, what do you do with it? First off, you can always look at it with a regular text file
editor. It will probably look like vomit if you’re dealing with a laser or inkjet printer. In this case, you
might want to temporarily change the driver at the workstation to “Generic/Text Only,” unless you speak
laser printer fluently. This way, you can read the spool file once you find it.
In addition to reading the spool file on the server end and seeing that it does not contain Paul is
dead over and over again—or some other such gibberish that might be caused by network
communication problems—you’ll also want to check the size of the file against the source. Just perform
a DIR on the filename and compare it to the file on the workstation. (To capture this on the workstation,
just set the printer to work offline before printing.)